


Let Me Speak No More

by Nova16



Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Constructive Criticism Welcome, Legend (Linked Universe)-centric, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Mute Legend, Muteness, Self-projecting over Legend for a bit, This Was Supposed To Be A One Shot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28865586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nova16/pseuds/Nova16
Summary: Link was just a boy, almost 11 when he watched his uncle die when fear took his voice away from him. He traveled all over Hyrule and other countries as a silent sword doing the goddesses' bidding whether he wanted to or not. Now he was a man at age 19 and he had no idea what he was going to do with his life. Would the answer lie at the other end of the mysterious purple portal?
Comments: 10
Kudos: 113





	Let Me Speak No More

The first ten years of his life were spent in laughter and love. He played with the other kids in the woods all day and helped his uncle tend to the garden outside their little house in the evening. Life was good. Life was peaceful, for a nobody like Link. For just an average boy living at the edge of the town with his uncle—the only person he needed in the world.

Perhaps the goddesses had a twisted sense of humor. Because a single stormy night was all it took to ruin everything.

The dream had been so real. So life-like. A girl, a princess, calling out to him, desperate for help. Then a bolt of lightning came crashing down right outside their house jolting him awake only to see his uncle dressing himself in armor frantically like he was getting ready for a battle.

His uncle’s eyes were so afraid and dark. It scared Link so badly that he couldn’t bring himself to say anything when his uncle told him to stay inside the rest of the night. His tongue had turned to lead in his mouth as he watched his uncle leave their little house for the last time.

How had his uncle expected him to go back to sleep? The storm was waging outside and every time lightning flashed across the sky thunder followed and shook the roof. He was just a boy and he wanted to hide with his head under the covers but his uncle was out there somewhere.

He still heard the girl’s voice ringing in his head begging him to save her. Shoving his head under the covers was no longer an option and he grabbed the lantern and steeled himself to leave the little house alone for the first time after dark.

The rain was so bad he could hardly see a few feet in front of him. The girl’s voice came back to him telling him to head for the castle but that’s where his feet were already headed. His uncle was one of the king’s soldier’s that’s where he would be. Link was sure of it. It’s what his uncle would always say when he would go to work.

_If there’s ever an emergency don’t hesitate to come find me in the castle. The guards at the front gate will let me know._

That’s where Link was running to as fast as his short legs could carry him. Surely the guards would let him in to see his uncle.

If it was possible, it started to rain even harder. It was like something devastating had happened and now the sky was crying. Link slipped on a wet patch of grass and fell to his knees—covering his hands and legs in mud. He felt tears build up in his eyes but he swallowed his feelings as much as he could and started running for the castle again.

Something was wrong and Link felt it within him long before he even made it to the front gate. There was only one guard there when there should have been two. He yelled at Link, telling him he should be in bed and not out this late, not in this storm.

But his uncle was in there. His uncle was in trouble he could feel it in his bones. _Something was wrong._

Link hadn’t realized he’d been clenching his teeth this whole time and now his jaw won’t open. But even when he relaxed his face enough to open his mouth his tongue laid flat and heavy in his mouth.

His fear traveled all over his body like the hands of several ghosts coaxing him to keep his mouth shut. Wrapping their cold fingers around his neck, trapping the words in his throat preventing their escape.

He couldn’t speak.

The princess spoke in his mind once more, telling him of a secret entrance into the castle. So he hid from the guards behind bushes and trees. He prayed to the goddesses that they wouldn’t be able to hear his rapid heartbeat and uneven breaths.

Link had found the secret entrance by mistake. It had been hidden underneath one of the bushes he’d taken to hiding under as a patrol passed him by.

The ground had disappeared from beneath him and he fell. Fear tightened its hold of him, squeezing his insides so he couldn’t even let out a scream. But he wanted to. He was falling and he wanted to scream so badly but the sound wouldn’t come out.

It hadn’t been that far of a fall and he landed in a shallow puddle of water—likely having dripped down from the rain. Not that he cared to have fallen in a puddle since he was already soaked to the bone. But there had been stone underneath the water and he landed hard on his hip.

Link hadn’t expected that level of pain—he’d scraped his knees and elbows, he even broke his arm once but this hurt way worse. But he was a big boy now, almost 11, he wasn’t going to cry no matter how scared and hurt he was. He wasn’t going to cry. So he swallowed his pain and held back his tears, he had to keep going his uncle was in the castle somewhere and he needed to find him. He had to make sure his uncle was okay.

The old forgotten stone passageway was dark and cold. Link took their old lantern out of his pack and lit it. What little warmth it provided him only brought to his attention just how cold he was. His teeth chattered and his body was overcome with shivers.

At the end of the hallway Link was met with a blood-curdling sight. The lantern slipped through his ice-cold fingers and clattered to the ground, bits of oil splashing out. His uncle lay prone on the ground with his head propped up by the wall. He was holding his stomach but that wasn’t enough to stop the blood from pouring out.

Fear was back again and it curled its freezing fingers around his mouth, holding his tongue in place. It sealed his jaw shut, forcing him to clench his teeth so hard it began to hurt.

His uncle was dying. He ran to him but there was nothing a boy almost 11 could do. He was being scolded for the last time, his uncle’s hand resting softly on his cheek. Link grabbed a hold of that hand and held on tightly as if to keep his uncle from leaving him like his parents had.

He told Link he loved him and gave him his sword and shield. Hot tears finally started to fall from his eyes but he still couldn’t open his mouth to tell his uncle he loved him too. His uncle begged him to take up his sword he told him to go save the princess—the girl who had been speaking to him. Link wanted to yell at the only father he knew to stop talking, to save his strength.

There were other things his uncle told him. Truths and lies. Secrets that if they were ever revealed to anyone, bad people would be after him.

The light was slowly leaving his uncle’s eyes and his words got quieter and farther apart. When the hand Link was holding so desperately onto went limp a scream built up inside his chest only to be snuffed out by fear once more.

He wanted to yell and scream and beg his uncle not to leave him but he couldn’t make his throat remember how to make sound.

Link was alone.

He was alone and wet and cold. He was scared and crying, silently cursing the goddesses for his uncle’s fate. He wanted to stay there, curl up under his uncle’s arm like he always did when he would get a bad dream. He wanted his uncle to brush his hair out of his eyes and dry his tears and tell him everything was going to be okay.

But everything wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay because he couldn’t stay there clinging to his uncle who had already passed on from this world. He had to get up. He had to take his uncle’s sword. He needed to find the princess, his…his…

Fear had its claws wrapped entirely around his body like shackles and chains meant for a prisoner. It paralyzed him and sapped his strength and kept him on his knees.

He had no idea how he managed to stand or how he remembered how to walk. What was it that kept him going? What was strong enough to fight off the fear that was trying to consume him? Something had whispered in the back of his mind that it was the courage in his heart but how could he believe that? What kind of courage did an almost 11-year-old boy who had nothing left in this world have?

The fear never left him all throughout his _adventure_ as Princess Zelda had called it. But it had been nothing like the adventures heroes went on in the stories his uncle used to read to him. They had all been strong knights who could best any foe that came before them.

Link was just a boy now 11. And he was still scared.

The people of his homeland who once called his name affectionately now spat it in disgust, calling for the soldiers to take him away. They think he kidnapped the princess and were ordered to capture him alive. But the brainwashed knights had attacked him with the intent to kill.

There were a few people who didn’t believe the lies and welcomed him into their homes or shops so he could hide from the soldiers. The fortune-teller and the old witch who sold him potions. The old woman never asked him questions but would give him free samples sometimes when he would stumble into her shop on his last legs.

All the while his mouth remained shut. He wanted so many times to thank her for risking her own life by helping him but he realized the longer he had kept quiet the more terrified he’d become of speaking.

Zelda had called him a hero but the moment he crossed over into the Dark World he knew the truth. It changed his form, shrinking him down until he walked on four legs as opposed to two. It was the work of a golden power that changed him into what his heart reflected in order to survive the Dark World’s tainted magic.

A rabbit.

A small helpless creature with thin bones and dull teeth. He couldn’t fight like this, couldn’t hold a sword. He was completely and utterly useless.

He knew what his Dark World form represented. He was weak. A coward. A scared little boy still soaked from the rain crying over his uncle’s body. He was afraid. Afraid of the sword that had been thrust into his hand unwillingly. Afraid of the responsibilities placed on his shoulders that were too heavy for a boy of 11 to bear alone. Afraid of the knights and monsters that hunted him.

A part of him was glad he’d turned into a rabbit, at least then he had no reason to speak at all.

The fear followed him even when it was all over. He’d defeated the evil and rescued not only the princess but the entire kingdom as well. He had thought things would change after he won, that things would be better.

His people still scorned him and screeched at him to go away. On the rare occasions where he would find his voice to tell the other children his age the tale of what happened the adults would swoop in and cover their ears. They would swat Link on the cheek and yell at him for filling their children’s heads with lies and fantasies. He gave up quickly trying to persuade them of the truth.

He tried so hard for a few years, living on his own in his uncle’s house. He was shunned by the people and labeled as an outcast. The knights at the castle drew their weapons whenever he would approach. It was tiring finding secret ways to sneak back in to visit the princess, the only one who even remotely understood.

It had been her idea to leave Hyrule. Not for forever but long enough so he could find himself and start to heal without the judging eyes of the townsfolk boring into him. So he left his country and journeyed to the distant land of Labrynna where he stayed for a year doing the only thing he knew best: being a fake hero.

It was strange to be praised and thanked whenever he would destroy monsters. It had been so long that he had almost forgotten what the meaning of the word ‘gratitude’ was. He was just doing his job. He was just a silent sword wielded by the great goddesses. He didn’t need to be thanked, he just needed to keep going forward.

After his year in Labrynna, he found himself doing the same thing in the country of Holodrum. Defeat monsters. Save people. Stop evil. Repeat. It was an endless cycle of violence disguised as heroism and he hadn’t gotten a say in any of it.

Because the hero of this story was Link.

Because Link was a silent hero.

Link returned to Hyrule no longer a boy but a man now almost 17. He spoke in small words but never held a conversation. The people never forgot him nor their hatred for him so on the eve of his 17th birthday he boarded a small, one-manned boat and set sail to an unknown location.

This was the second time that a stormy night would ruin his life in ways he could never have imagined.

When he was alone at sea he was at ease, he didn’t need to speak out here if there was no one to speak to. But that stormy night brought back his old friend ‘fear’ and threatened to reopen scars that had barely healed over.

It was a bad storm and he knew it was coming. He was stupid to think he could have been fine sailing through it. Waves rose around him, higher than his mast, it yanked and tossed his small boat around unforgivingly. When the lightning came down, striking him, he knew he was done for. He sent silent apologies to Zelda and the old witch who had done so much to help him on his first adventure. As the bolt of electricity tore apart his ship with the help of the ocean he couldn’t help but feel at peace as he drifted away to sleep.

He hadn’t expected to wake up and honestly he truly believed he’d washed up back on the shores of Hyrule’s coast because through his bleary eyes he thought the girl standing over him had been his sister, Zelda.

He whispered her name, broken up by a cough, but he realized his mistake as his vision started to clear up. The girl—Marin was her name—wasn’t a princess but her beauty could put the goddesses to shame and his throat closed up for a whole new reason.

The island he washed up on was called Koholint and it was almost too good for him to believe. At first, he automatically fell into his routine with defeating the monsters and clearing out dungeons until he heard Marin singing in the center of the village.

He’d been so captivated by her voice that he sat on the edge of a fountain and listened as she sang for hours. Monsters and dungeons completely gone from his mind. He had wanted so badly to speak with the island girl, to ask her questions and tell her jokes. The realization struck something inside of him. Talking to someone, that was something he hadn’t wished for since the day his uncle died all those years ago.

So he tried. He would spend hours down at the beach practicing how to say her name. It was so hard to convince himself that it was okay to speak, that there was no one here who would slap him for telling a story. He wanted to tell them, share his life with the people of this island, but it’s been so long that he was afraid he didn’t have the words to tell them.

But Marin was patient and kind. She never laughed when he would trip over a word or pronounce something wrong or stuttered in the middle of a sentence. She would wait for him to dig through his brain until he could find the right word to use even if it took minutes.

He was only 17 but he knew right there and then what love felt like. Different from the love he had had for his uncle but just as strong if not stronger.

Slowly, Marin got him to open up to her and the village. Somewhere along the way Link had picked up the accent of the island people completely forgoing his Hylian one. Before he knew it he was able to talk a mile a minute giving Marin and her father Tarin a dramatic retelling of his first time fighting Ganon over dinner.

Tarin. The man had welcomed Link into his home with open arms and loved him like a son. Link never realized just how much he longed for this. For a family and friends and a place to call home. On one good day, Link had accidentally called Tarin ‘father’. It shocked both of them and Marin found them later that day locked in a hug with tears streaming down their cheeks.

It had all been too good to be true. He should have seen it coming.

The island and all of its inhabitants were nothing but illusions—a dream the Windfish dreamt up and by doing his job as a hero, by waking the Windfish from his sleep, Link would be destroying the island and Marin and Tarin.

That was when fear returned to him, undoing almost all of Marin’s hard work. His muscles never ceased to be tense and most days he would find himself clenching his teeth together for hours on end. He was afraid to tell them the truth. He was afraid _of_ the truth.

And when the hour came, when he finally walked up the steps of Mount Tamaranch with all eight instruments he allowed fear to once again seal his mouth shut.

The Nightmares were defeated. The Windfish woke and so did Link.

As he drifted alone at sea he cried again silently, begging the goddesses to take away his voice forever. If this was to be his fate after opening up and allowing himself to speak up then he didn’t want it anymore.

_Please. Please, let me speak no more._

Link had no idea how long he spent at sea, he’d lost all concept of time. A trade ship found him floating amidst the wreckage of his boat and helped him aboard. They asked him questions, so many questions but why did it matter? Who cared where he came from? Who cared what happened to his boat? Who cared what his name was?

It took them longer than Link would have liked to realize he wasn’t going to say anything. It wasn’t for lack of trying. He’d opened his mouth to ask for water but the words…he couldn’t get them out.

They ended up calling him Guppy, no doubt due to his short stature and the fact that they fished him out of the sea, but Link preferred it to the other names he’s gotten over the years.

Criminal. Hero.

Link was content to being Guppy for the few weeks he spent aboard their boat until they reached the shores of Hyrule once again.

This time he hadn’t even bothered to sneak into the castle to see Zelda. There was no point if she was only going to ask questions he didn’t know how to answer. So he spent months traveling through Hyrule and avoiding the Castle Town at all costs. He roamed from village to village, at one point he stayed in one for an entire month working as a blacksmith’s apprentice. The villagers had no idea who he was and never questioned his silence.

But even that had to end for him as a new villain ripped open portals between Hyrule and another world: Lorule. Zelda had been taken captive once again and he was forced to don his hero’s cap for the fifth time. Link set out again to save Hyrule an adult now almost 18.

Turning into a painting was a strange feeling but he preferred it over his Dark World form. Lorule was a mirror image of Hyrule. Everything was as it was during his first adventure. He cursed himself for pleading to the goddesses to take his voice away now as he wished for his ability to speak again when a merchant had come and taken up residence in his house.

Ravio was something else. The guy always wore a hood over his head so Link never got a good look at his face. He sold weapons to Link whenever he needed them which he wouldn’t have minded so much if the prices had been reasonable. He could only carry so many rupees at a time!

As much as Ravio annoyed him he was almost glad to have someone nearby. The chains fear had wrapped around him didn’t let up but just knowing he wasn’t alone eased him slightly.

The issue in Lorule turned complicated very quickly and Link was pulled into so much more than just a few monsters and a crazy guy who turned people into paintings. The triforce came into play and his old enemy Ganon was once again revived.

He was getting tired of fighting him, twice in his previous adventures and a third time the Shadow Nightmare had taken on his form during their battle inside the Windfish’s egg.

But he did his job as a silent sword and rid Lorule of evil.

When it came time for him and Zelda to return to Hyrule Link was faced with a dilemma. He was never going to see Ravio again after this. Ravio, who turned out to be his Lorulean counterpart, he’d gotten so used to his presence that he dreaded returning to an empty house. He needed to speak to him at least once. He needed to tell him goodbye.

But his jaw was clenched and his tongue was heavy and fear told him no over and over and over again. They parted ways and once he and the princess were returned to Hyrule the magic in the bracelet depleted and shattered. Cutting them off completely from the only real friend he’d ever had.

He couldn’t return to the house that had once belonged to his uncle, not when he was alone once again. So he left Hyrule again and started to travel the world again which was how he ended up in Hytopia. And the few months he spent there? Well…Link preferred to forget that particular adventure as soon as possible.

Link wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with his life. After all, he was an adult at a little over 19. He had no job. No family. Was he doomed to walk the Earth as a wandering swordsman until he died?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, he was able to push that question off for a while longer when a giant purple portal appeared before his eyes. He didn’t give its origin much thought, it was a new path, away from Hyrule and he was going to take it knowing full well adventure number seven was awaiting him on the other side. 

**Author's Note:**

> So. This is a bit different than what I've done before. It's a little heavier. This is my obligatory self-projection fic. I was never actually mute but there was a time in my life where I felt it and so I wanted to try and write those emotions out using Legend. This was a harder one to write. I couldn't find the words to, well, explain how I couldn't find words to say. I feel a little bit lighter publishing this although I'm a tad bit salty that it ended up being a multi-chaptered thing. Why do I do this to myself?  
> Anywho I hope you enjoyed this so far.  
> Nova


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